Burnt Earth
by Pastey
Summary: Year is 2146. Humans are an endangered species, ritually hunted by the reptilian Agross. Cobar leaves his shelter in the desert of the Australian Outback in search of food, but finds something unexpected.
1. Chapter 1

Burnt Earth

Chapter 1: Vultures

The heat seems to have a churning noise of its own outside of Cobar's partially buried hovel. Air heavy with sediment from the expanse of desert lazily pushes across the wastes, filling his throat with scratchy granules as he inhales. Lifting a scaly, clawed hand over his slit eyes he patiently surveys the sand-choked horizon. It doesn't take long for him to spot the unmistakable shape of wings smoothly gliding in circles far south of the shelter. Limply, Cobar allows the hand fall back to his bare thigh.

The reptile's mind is full of thoughts, albeit being unable to articulate words describing them. He has not known the company of another sentient since he was a hatchling, and does not know how to communicate in any spoken language. As a result, his mind is one that speaks in images, sounds and smells married to meanings rather than a flurry of voices. At the moment, Cobar is putting together the image of black vulture wings casting shadows on dry cracked mud and the smell of carrion baking in the unyielding sun. Indeed, this is a day worth leaving the shade of his home, he expresses to himself wordlessly. With a raspy grunt, his nostrils and throat are cleared of sand before crouching into the hole that serves as the entrance to his shelter.

It doesn't take Cobar long to reemerge, as he has very few physical possessions to retrieve. Slung over his shoulder and hanging by his waist is a crude satchel fashioned from animal skins. A hood lays draped down the length of his head and snout, also crafted from the hides of desert creatures. He runs his forked tongue along the backsides of his sharpened teeth. Gazing into the southern sky to confirm the location of the circling carrion fowl, Cobar pushes off in their direction.

His stride is not forced despite being against the direction of the blowing sands. A slightly elongated neck causes Cobar's head to gently bob with each step as he cuts through the mild sand storm. The scales protecting his body are dull green with sections of tan stripes along his back. These tough plates don't receive burns from the sun easily, but his head however is long and susceptible to overheating. The simple cut of animal skin he drapes over his skull serves to keep the top of his snout and scalp from becoming too warm. All he needs to worry about is whether or not the vultures will remain aloft as a beacon for him to follow much longer.

Muscular double jointed legs make Cobar a superb runner and jumper if the need arises, but he rarely ever meets a situation dire enough to make him spend so much of his precious water and energy. His legs come to an end with long, three-toed feet; each toe equipped with a black talon similar to those on his fingers.

As he bends his ankle at the end of each step, he sinks the claw on his big toe deep into the sand. All too often the desert yields small gifts in the form of scorpions and lizards buried just below the surface, excellent bite-sized snacks. If the sands are exceptionably generous, one can chance upon a covered bloat frog burrow. When the rains come, bloat frogs emerge from the ground to feed and spawn in the thousands. Once the storms pass, each frog burrows into the ground and creates a sort of water-tight cocoon with the mucus in its skin mixed with the sand in which to hibernate. When next the rains come, the cocoon dissolves and the frogs repeat the cycle. Cobar knows finding one of these melon-sized cement spheres means he can either break it open for an edible water balloon or save it for later use within its shell. Few surprises in his life leave him as pleased as finding one of these frogs nestled in the sand, so not a single step passes him by unchecked.

Gusts of warm air slam countless grains of sand against his scale-plated chest as he checks the buzzards' position. To his surprise, he can already hear their caws and screeches over the wispy howl of the sand clouds. This means that the birds themselves are drawing closer to _him_. Whatever they have their eyes on is still alive and moving in his direction. Cobar becomes very concerned. He counts eight separate birds indicating their quarry is sizable and has been suffering long enough to attract many of the feathered scavengers.

Cobar pauses for a moment considering the possibilities. If he's lucky it's just a camel, but it could be something nastier like a sand thresher. He kneels down in the sand and lowers his head. The spindles in the leathery frills behind his ear sockets grow rigid with anxiety, causing them to fan out away from his neck in a display of vivid crimson. With concentration, he manages to subdue the instinctive hissing noise his contracting throat produces when he becomes frightened. All the same though, he pulls his satchel in front of himself and riffles through it nervously.

Within seconds he produces a crude instrument out of the leather sack. The tool is of the same material that forms his hovel to the north. He isn't its crafter. Rather, he found it years ago near a skeleton in the desert. It seems alien to him, like it doesn't belong among the desert's rocks, sands, brush, or bones. It's a foreigner to these lands; tough as stone, yet at the same time bendable under force like thick branches. When struck sharply it rings for several seconds, and if left in the open sun it becomes painfully hot to the touch. One end of its length is blunt enough for him to hold comfortably while the other is serrated and fine edged. He uses this tool to free the dying creatures the buzzards would find from their misery. A clean motion across the neck brings death the quickest and easiest.

Using the howling wind to muffle the sounds of his shifting legs, Cobar sprawls over the ground on all fours. His double jointed legs let him do this comfortably, enabling him to creep up on a target very low to the ground. From snout to tail, not a single part of him rises off the ground more than his skull's length. He slowly crawls over the sand towards the vultures' trophy, holding his tool in his mouth. The sand continuously hits his face as gusts throw large clouds of it into the air, but he does not let it faze him. His eyes remains fixated ahead of him, hardly blinking even in the buffeting gales. His movement slows to a complete stop and he waits for the animal to stumble unwittingly into his ambush, muscles tensing unbearably in anticipation.

A faint cry some ten or fifteen steps ahead in the airborne sand almost sends Cobar into the air with a startled hiss. It is a noise he never heard any creature make, but he can plainly hear the anguish in it. Within seconds, the soaring collection of black wings cackle and caw as they swoop out of the blue sky and into the golden brown mist just ahead of Cobar. If it is safe for the vultures it is also safe for him, the reptilian man reasons to himself. With caution, he picks himself up off the ground and moves in to assess the value of the meat.

It may not be dead, but it is completely covered in a frenzy of shifting black feathers. A few quick steps forward and some guttural barking scares away the majority of the feeders for Cobar to get a clear look at the prize. Not a second passes before he reacts to her, leaping backward with frills wide open and hissing hysterically. Before now, Cobar has never encountered a live human.


	2. Chapter 2

Burnt Earth

Chapter 2: The Law of Necessity

She still breathes. Maybe not much longer but the human is still breathing. Cobar spends a minute sprawled over the ground in motionless observance. He's never been this close to a live human before. She hardly stirs save for her labored breathing. Her smooth dark skin reminds him of soil after the rains, and the fur on her head is black like charred wood. She has garments unlike his animal skin hood. They cover her torso and are made of rough fabric. Breathing in the scent of her open wounds, Cobar mentally quantifies how much meat there would be on her bones.

Cobar does not assess anything in terms of right or wrong, only in terms of survival. The only law is the law of necessity. It is a necessity that he finds food to sustain himself in the harsh desert. This female human, as rare a sight as she may be, could hold him up for a month at the very least. Crouched at her side, he casts a shadow across her limp form. He places a hand around her shoulder to roll her on her back while another hand purposefully clasps his throat cutting tool. Observing a while longer, he notes the smells clinging to her clothes. There is her blood and musk, but something subtle is present. Ash from burnt flesh cannot hide from more thorough sniffing.

Her weak voice catches Cobar off guard when her mouth falls open. His hand leaves her shoulder and his vision snaps to her face. With a furrowed brow her fingers clutch a fistful of sand at her side. The reptile beholds the veins bulging on the top of her hand. There is still some will to live in this creature. Cobar does not understand why he stays his knife. He feels a vague urgency as though he is lost and unable to find shelter, or being followed by a pack of threshers. All he knows is that this girl's life is now more valuable to him than her meat. The reptile grows anxious as the sun and the vultures continue to focus on her. Though convinced the girl requires saving, Cobar's growling stomach quickly reminds him of the law he lives by. He glances around himself for another option and notices the line of buzzards sitting just steps away, patiently awaiting a morsel of flesh. With a tilt of his head, the grip on his knife is filled with purpose yet again.

In Cobar's arms, the girl weighs little more than the bird slung around his neck. He hunches over as he walks, keeping the human close to his body to keep her out of the sun. Through the sand Cobar's eyes lead him towards his buried shelter. However, every second they do not look ahead his eyes remain fixed on her. They catalogue her injuries from the birds and carefully monitoring her breathing. With the warm desert gales at his back, Cobar makes larger steps than normal to hasten his passenger to safety. Two hours after he had left the cool of his shelter, the reptile spots its shiny surface once again.

Most of his home is hidden beneath the sand with only a small portion above ground to give it away. The interior shape resembles a tube, descending at a shallow angle six meters down and roughly two meters in diameter. The walls of this tube bear sectioned shelving units where Cobar stows his few earthly possessions; mortar and pestle, simplistic makeshift tools as well as his cache of water and medicinal plants rest organized in rows. The circular entrance is opened and shut with a fitted lid barely clinging to a mangled hinge. A single porthole filled with a clear yet solid substance allows light to pour in even when the lid is shut. Cobar tugs this door open with one arm forcefully. It moans and grinds against the grains of sand in the hinge, but he opens it wide enough to carefully carry the girl inside. Clearing the door, he allows the bird around his neck to slide off and collapse on the hard floor while he continues to the back of the shelter. Here Cobar carefully lays the girl down in a bed of sand. In contrast to his home's angled position, the sand is level with the ground outside and fills the last few feet of his home like a large puddle.

While carrying her home, Cobar determined the first things she would need were shade, dressings for her wounds and water. With shade taken care of, he turns to the shelving units on the walls. He hangs his leather scalp-hood on one of their corners and pulls off a bundle of reeds and grasses. Holding the grasses in his mouth he gathers a melon sized ball of hardened sand containing a precious water-storing frog. Only four more are left on the shelf. After untying the bundles he passes the grass through the left of his mouth and out the right, biting down repeatedly to release their moisture. They taste awful but he had learned long ago that these grasses could be used to speed the healing of open wounds. Carefully he lays the softened plants over the gashes on her limbs and then wraps them in place with the long flexible reeds. He exhales loudly as he finishes, figuring if she's anything like him that the wounds would be closed in a few days.

Spending water is never an easy choice for Cobar. It is easily his most valuable and rare commodity. The grasses and reeds are easy enough for him to replace as they grow in any place where large rocks and red soil are present, but the frogs are found entirely at random beneath the sand. There would be no telling when he'd find more. Holding one of the cemented cocoons, Cobar thinks heavily on his decision. Giving her the water would be a capital violation of the law of necessity. She should not have ventured into this land if she wasn't prepared to live by its rules. Why should she deserve any of his water?

Before another thought of "why not" comes to Cobar's mind, the girl stirs. Hardly more than a squeak leaves her lips, and her heels try to push at the sand without the aid of her legs. Her face winces painfully in a way that strikes Cobar profoundly. To the reptile it is as though she pulls at him with invisible lines, a sensation unlike anything he had ever experienced. Cobar recognizes the qualities that set him apart from the beasts of this desert are shared with this human. Upon seeing that she is more like him than any creature he knows, Cobar knows for certain she must be saved. With conviction he strikes the hardened sand ball in his hand against the wall of his shelter producing a loud ring.

The sandy cocoon falls apart into chunks revealing a pale green mass at its center. The bloated frog prematurely released from its hibernation kicks with futility in Cobar's grasp. He positions himself close to the girl on the sand bed, lifting her head to rest it against his thigh. Not wanting her to choke, he stimulates her by rubbing the back of his scaly hand against her cheek. Her jaw moves, which he takes as a sign to continue. Removing the water from the frog is no more complicated than removing the juice from a ripe fruit. Cobar places the back end of the frog just above her lips and gradually applies pressure to the squirming amphibian. The water squeezed out is actually filtered by the frog's body and perfectly safe to drink, apart from the bitter after taste. Only a few drops at a time go into her mouth, as Cobar gives her a chance to send them down her throat. By the time he squeezes out all the frog has to offer, she has consumed about two handfuls of water. Now resembling a deflated balloon, Cobar pops the struggling frog into his mouth of sharp teeth. They are best when eaten alive.

The light from outside grows dim as dusk falls on the desert. Sticking his head out of the door, Cobar sees more time passed while tending to his patient than he thought. The buzzard would need to be kept inside until tomorrow when the sun could be used to prepare its meat. Ironically, the cruel heat of the day is needed to for Cobar to stay alive when the frigid night comes. The heat his body produces is simply not enough on its own, requiring external heat to reach his ideal body temperature. He pulls the hinged door shut, trapping in what heat had gathered during the day and reducing the light inside his home. Over twenty years of living in this pod make Cobar intimately familiar with its layout; more than enough to navigate in the dark to an unused shelf without incident. With the girl on his sand bed, he would need to use this shelf as a cot tonight. It is just big enough for him to rest on his side, leaving his arms, legs and tail to dangle off the edge. Though mildly uncomfortable, Cobar feels sleep approaching. Before dozing off, he waits for his eyes to adjust and looks to the human girl once more. She will live. There is nothing more necessary than that.

In the early morning, the reptile's arms and legs stretch in any direction they can. Unfortunately, Cobar forgets his placement from the night before and finds himself crashing to the hard floor. Too groggy and cold to respond, he clumsily knocks his belongings from their places. Crashing on the floor plates, they cause a loud orchestra of rings and clangs. The morning haze doesn't help Cobar much either, inspiring a scrambling panic ending with yet another failed attempt to get on his feet. As he falls to the floor again, the young human's eyes snap open. She is greeted with the scaly visage of his face on the floor no more than two inches from her nose.

Her scream bounces off of every possible surface in the pod, and nearly steals the very beating of Cobar's heart. He can only react by joining the human with a terrified shriek of his own, the frills on his neck fanning out in a bright red display on either side of his head. In response to this the girl's arms and legs turn into blurs, inadvertently flinging sand in Cobar's eyes. She looses several short screams while backing up against her end of the shelter. Similarly, Cobar throws himself off the floor to get to his feet, only to slam the top of his scalp against the roof of his shelter. Barking loudly in pain, his hands clutch his head and his legs kick backward furiously only to trip over his scattered possessions. All the while the grains of sand sting his eyes and the girl's screaming pierces his eardrums. Incapable of doing anything halfway coordinated in his frantic state, Cobar opts to just crash his back into the lid of the shelter until it opens and he can throw himself onto the sand outside.

The sun is just a small red dot resting on the horizon and the desert. The heat hasn't even awakened yet Cobar thinks to himself. It takes a moment for the confused reptile to compose himself as he rubs his eyes and head. Though she has stopped her shrill screams, Cobar can still hear her moving around inside his home. Cautiously he peers over the rim into the depth of the shaft. He observes almost all his possessions in disarray dejectedly. The girl is still at the bottom, but she has something of his clasped tightly in both her hands pointed toward the door. Cobar's shiny cutting tool catches the morning light.

When she sees the shape of his head looking down at her, she grows loud again. His head is simply a silhouette against the purple morning sky. The frills on either side of his head allow a small amount of light to shine through their leathery membrane, producing an eerie red glow. Cobar can tell the noises she makes now differ from the terrified screams earlier, though a great deal of fear still persists. Her voice makes rapid variations of sound with intermittent pauses. It isn't an automatic response to danger like the way he hisses when he's afraid; to him it sounds too structured and deliberate to be natural. The bandages on her arms and legs remind him quickly of her condition. He knows she shouldn't be this active yet, that she would need to rest if her recovery were to continue. Additionally, the tool in her hands could do her harm if she wasn't careful.

The closer he approaches her in the shelter, the more erratic her actions grow. Her voice cracks as she shouts at him, jerking the blade in Cobar's direction every few seconds. A meter from her he stops his approach, setting himself down on his knees. This close to her, the resptile can see that she is losing fluid from her eyes and how the skin on her face shines as though soaking wet. Her limbs constantly quiver and her voice breaks into coughs in between shouts. This kind of duress is unacceptable; she needs to rest. Before he can leave her to recover, Cobar would need to take that tool from her. If he were a bit warmer he feels certain that he could snatch the knife out of her grasp quicker than she could catch him, but that would take some time for the sun to get higher in the sky. He takes care not to move quickly, picking up various items and placing them on the shelves and slowly showcasing his movements. He paints a picture of his intent for her, hope she is composed enough to see he means no harm. A number of things rolled down to the foot of the sand pool during all the commotion, including all four of his remaining frog cocoons. As worried for her safety as he is, Cobar also cannot tolerate any risk to his sole water supply. Slowly, he leans forward to reach the sandy spheres.

Jan's eyes follow the scaly clawed hand. It wraps its four long fingers around the objects near her feet and pulls them away. She looks around herself for anything else the Aggros might want. Not wanting him anywhere near her, she scoots a few bundles of sticks and pieces of scrap metal with her feet towards him. She won't let her hands release the leathery handle of the hunting knife, but her entire body aches to the point where simply keeping her head up is excruciating.

Gravity wins out at last. Jan can't hold the knife outstretched any longer and allows it to fall into her lap. She's surprised to see crude bandages wrapped around several sections of her arms and legs, since she certainly didn't apply them herself. The last thing she remembers is stumbling through the sandstorm away from Outpost Charlie, watching the shadows of the vultures on the ground around her. Apparently one of the Aggros hunters from the attack had found her. Terrified, Jan's mind races with reasons why a vicious killer with a vendetta against humanity would be keeping her in captivity. It's entirely possible he is just saving her for later. She's seen firsthand these creatures eating people alive. Her eyes reluctantly move to the alien's black claws, particularly the large curved ones on his inside toes. The very sight of them makes her sick to her stomach and her eyes roll in her head before passing out.

The smell of cooking meat coaxes Jan back to consciousness. She hasn't moved, still lying on the sand inside the metal tube. The Aggros from before is nowhere in sight, much to her relief. She hasn't eaten in days and the smell of cooking meat compels her to ignore her aching limbs. On all fours, she scales the incline of the metal pod towards the light at its other end. The angle is not steep, but her injuries make it a struggle nonetheless. At the top of her climb, she throws an elbow out and around the rim of the entrance, peering out on the desert flats.

Jan's stomach turns upon seeing the reptile just outside with his back to her. He is tending a small fire fueled by little more that twigs and brush. A few rocks hold a piece of dark scrap metal above the orange flames where pink meat sizzles in the sun. Behind the cooking fire is a metal spike stuck into the sand with a plucked and carved vulture thrust upon it. Below the impaled bird is a large curved metal sheet that the reptile seems to use as a blood collecting pan. As ghastly as the sight is, she still hungers terribly. After all, fresh vulture beats week-old vulture any day.

As Jan starts to form plans of getting a hold of some meat without that Aggros seeing her, the reptile turns around. The urge to plunge back into the shelter almost keeps Jan from noticing the strips of meat in his outstretched hand. She doesn't think twice and snatches them away, immediately pressing them to her lips and teeth. Though she eats ferociously, Jan's eyes never leave her scaly waiter. He grunts softly before turning back to the crackling flames. Somehow, knowing his eyes aren't on her makes her feel safer, which lets her focus on the flavor of the carrion fowl. It's dry, gamey and tough to chew. Jan can't remember the last time vulture tasted so good.

For two days Cobar cares for the human girl like this. During this time, he commits another of his frogs to sustaining her health. To his dismay it would seem that humans need water in larger quantities than himself, requiring nearly one whole frog a day. To make things more frustrating, Cobar notices that her skin expels moisture in heat. At night when all else is quiet, her breathing becomes louder and water literally rolls from her eyes in whole drops. He will have to go searching for more frogs lest his reserves run dry in the coming days.

As stressful as the situation is for Cobar, he doesn't regret his choice to save her. Recently the girl felt well enough to get on her own two feet and walk around. Watching her recovery is like watching rain clouds roll in over the desert; a cause for joy. Regardless if she had made his life more enjoyable, he knows he cannot keep her with him in his little shelter forever. She would need to rejoin with other humans where they live, if her survival were to be better guaranteed.

Far to the south of his home, about three days travel, Cobar knows of a place where he thinks humans may reside. Years ago, he had journeyed to this region to investigate a dry lakebed for buried frogs. Out on the horizon, he saw the shapes of several creatures walking upright in a line towards some craggy formations. If there are humans to be found anywhere in this desert, Cobar figures those crags would be the most likely place.

The next morning Cobar collects a few of his possessions in his large leather satchel. Wrapped meat, the last of the sealed frogs, his cutting tool, the healing grasses and kindling for fire are packed. He doesn't wait for the sun to heat the sands as there will be plenty of time to be traveling under the baking sun throughout the day. By pushing open the lid to the shelter, he awakens the girl on the sand bed. Her time spent in his care has made her slightly more comfortable around him, though she would still recoil in the event of physical contact. At the very least, she no longer screams when he walks within reaching distance of her.

As Cobar leaves the shelter door with his bag, the girl slowly rises from her sleep. He waits for her a few meters away from the shelter under the purple sky. When her head emerges, he motions with his hand towards the gentle dunes to the south. A quick jerk of his head combined with a few leading steps in that direction communicate perfectly to the human girl what he means for her to do. It takes her a few minutes to decide for herself, but soon enough the two of them are starting off into the desert to find the humans that may or may not exist.


End file.
